i just quit playing guitar about an hour ago and the right side of my forearm is tight and a little sore

have i pulled a muscle? should i do anything for it?heat or something?

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no thats just your pain tollerance, your arm does that if you play to hard on it. my guitar teacher use to give me these drills to, and well my pain tollerence is about near my elbow.

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i was playing an immolation song and really getting into it.

so i didnt give my self tendonitis or something then...good.

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Warm up, man, you won't feel any pain if you warm up before playing.

i know,im going to start from now on. i usually run through the 1-2-3-4 thing before playing, but not enough

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There are bad habits that you want to avoid, you can fuck yourself up by developing bad strumming techniques etc. Alot of people get fucked up by wearing their guitars around their knees.

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that happens to me all the time. the first 2-3 times i was like aww, fucking cunt. but not it dosnt bother now. just think like this - my arms sore, im going off!

berzerker comes to mind here. whether you like them or not [i like them] the fact is that they do have some talent.
anyway back to the point, berzerker had a song they couldnt play at the speed they wanted to. so, after however long it took then to get flukes that speed once, then they said, right to the recording room. something lke 117 takes then folloew. the guitarist had a bloody arm, taped up with duct tape and well basicall he destroyed his arm.

hahah, im not in it for blood and tape.

yeah, the pain wasnt that bad at all, just wanted to make sure there was no SERIOUS damage done.

from now on:warm up!

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1-2-3-4 is not enough, it only warms up like "partially". You should also play any difficult song you like, but quite slowly, so there's no tension in your wrist, arm, etc.
I believe you should check out this thread for suggestions on how to warm up properly. Even if the topic is about "how to get speed", you can find interesting chromatic patterns there.
Obviously, any scale, arpeggios (useful) or runs you know helps a lot. In addition to warming up your fingers, they'll improve your speed (if you're using a metronome, it'll go 100x faster).
Spend AT LEAST 20 minutes on that shit.

i threw my back out one time cause i was jamming all day i guess i got too into headbanging or something

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The only really time i've ever had problems playing is when I was first learning how to palm mute back in the day. My right arm got sore but that was just because I wasn't used to palm muting. Other than that, I can't really think of any other time that I hurt myself playing.

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check out John Petrucci's rock discipline. He has a streching thinga magier

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I'm training alternate picking too and some palm muting which has gotten a hell of alot better since i tried a new position.

spirit-thanks, ill check out that thread. this summer i plan on starting formal and long practice sessions

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A lot of it is just muscle endurance. The more you play, the longer you CAN play. If your arm or hand hurts after playing for a while, stop playing, only come back to it when your arm doesn't hurt. you can seriously injure yourself by playing when you're too tired and your muscles are just worked.

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yeah, ive been playing for five years or so,never had the problem before
who knows

i warmed up using the 1-2-3-4,2-3-4-5 and on up on the strings, made a huge difference!

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whoa ive never warmed up in my life and never gotten sore either....

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heh

sheer laziness, but it makes a HUGE difference. im now on the other side of the fence.

good god, whats next, theory?

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Fear me, i'm whipped cream head, and i will hammer inte theory in your empty heads!

hahahaha,ok

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I don't warm up, I don't get sore, and I play in a Technical Death Metal band and our practices run around 4 hours long.

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I don't think warming up as in doing scales or boring exercices is necessary, since the riffs you would normally play can warm you up just as well. The main idea is to avoid going from nothing to all out shreddage.

Your arm is gonna get sore either way.

i remember when my fore arms used to ache, but bout a month later i cured it by going to the gym and training my forearms

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petrucci's rock discipline has some awesome warmups.

i also got one of those squishy balls.. they sell them in the sports section of walmart or wherever. you can just sit there suqeezing on it over and over while you watch tv or something. it really works the hell out of the muscles you use while playing.. i never have a problem with sore muscles anymore. use that regularly and warm up sufficiently.

i wasnt even shredding, i just picked up the guitar and started playing some really fast stuff on the lower strings.

thanks for everyones advice

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